How to Diagnose and Resolve the ‘System failed to generate the PDF’ or 'PDF Document Generation Failure' errors in Procurement (Doc ID 1520871.1)

Last updated on JUNE 21, 2023

Applies to:

Oracle iProcurement - Version 12.0.0 to 12.2 [Release 12 to 12.2]
Oracle Purchasing - Version 11.5.10 to 12.2 [Release 11.5 to 12.2]
Information in this document applies to any platform.

Purpose

The objective of this document is to provide best practices for preventing and resolving the for ‘System failed to generate the PDF document’ error in Procurement. This document is applicable for release 11.5 and above.

System failed to generate the PDF document errors can occur from various navigation paths in the Purchasing responsibility:

From Reports>Run choosing the ‘PO Output for Communication’. From Print there are two manual report choices: PO Output for Communication and PO Output for Communication: FAX
After entering a Purchase Order and choosing the Approve button under Transmission Methods, Print, Fax or E-Mail can be chosen. This can also be setup to automatically default from the Supplier Setup.
From the Purchase Order Summary form choosing Tools>Communicate where Print , FAX or Email can be chosen.
From the Buyer Work Center, open a Purchase Order in the Orders tab and choose the action View PDF.

Errors like the following may be encountered (not all are mentioned here) and can be seen from various sources; such as the wfstat.sql, the PO Output for Communication log file, View Output, on approval and via the notifications:

PDF Document Generation Failure - Standard Purchase Order XX
The system could not generate and/or communicate at least one of the documents to the supplier or the approver. Please contact the system administrator.
java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError
PO_REQAPPROVAL_INIT1.EMAIL_DOC_YES_NO ORA-0140

Regardless of the navigation use these best practices to avoid and resolve ‘System failed to generate the PDF document’ issues.